Michael Richardson: Asia heads for over-fishing crisis as demand just keeps growing

When Taiwan's Government sent two navy frigates last week into an area of the East China Sea disputed with Japan and China, it was intending to make political points at home and abroad.

But the intent was not just to defend Taipeh's claim to sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands north of Taiwan, known in Japan as the Senkaku, it was also to protect the rights of Taiwanese fishermen who had complained of harassment from Japanese patrol boats.

The day before the Taiwanese warships were sent off to "show the flag", a group of fishermen in the Malaysian state of Sarawak staged protests over the activities of Thai-owned boats holding Malaysian deep-sea fishing licences in a new flare-up of a long dispute between the two groups. The local fishermen accused the Thais, who have been renting the licences from their Malaysian holders for the past seven years, of encroaching into their fishing grounds.

Thailand, with China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, is one of Asia's so-called distant water fishing nations whose vessels range far from their own shores. Tension over access to fisheries has become commonplace in Asia and other parts of the world as too many boats chase too few fish, causing clashes of interest.

The Asian Development Bank says the region has the largest fishing fleet, with 42 per cent of the world's registered tonnage. These vessels, which are often subsidised, have twice the capacity needed to extract what the oceans can sustainably produce. The result, according to the bank, is "a vicious circle: as catches per vessel fall, profits plummet, and fishers overfish to maintain supplies, causing serious depletion of stocks and endangering long-term availability".

The over-fishing crisis is a global problem but its implications for Asia are more serious than for any other part of the world. Fish is a staple food in the region and a major source of protein. The Asian Development Bank, based in Manila, predicts that demand for fish in Asia will continue to rise, reaching about 70 million tonnes by 2010 and accounting for 60 per cent of world food fish demand by 2010, compared with 53 per cent in 1990.

Although Japan will remain the biggest fish consumer on a per capita basis, China - with a projected population of 1.4 billion - will take by far the biggest amount of fish by 2010, an estimated 28.4 million tonnes. Can wild fisheries and aquaculture meet the demand from Asia and the rest of the planet?

Last March the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) issued a grim snapshot of the state of world fisheries in a biannual report that warned of growing pressures on stocks since 2002 that was unsustainable.

The FAO said 52 per cent of world fish stocks were fully exploited, compared with 47 per cent three years ago, while nearly 25 per cent were over-exploited. It said that seven of the top-10 marine fish species were already stretched to their limits, including Chilean jack mackerel, Alaska pollock, Japanese anchovy and blue whiting.

"Stock depletion has implications for food security and economic development, reduces social welfare in countries around the world and undermines the wellbeing of underwater ecosystems," said Ichiro Nomura, FAO assistant director general for fisheries.

The UN agency forecast that total world consumption of fish may rise by more than 25 per cent to 181 million tonnes by 2015, underscoring the urgent need to rebuild depleted wild fish stocks while increasing coastal farm fish production. Yet the latter, now widely practised in Asia, is problematic because it often causes environmental damage.

Over the past few decades, aquaculture development in Asia, especially shrimp farming, has led to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of mangrove forests, which are vital for filtering nutrients, cleansing water and protecting coastlines from floods and storms.

In the Philippines, for example, it has been estimated that as much as 65 per cent of the original 450,000ha of mangroves have been converted to other uses, chiefly brackish water fishponds.

Effluent from aquaculture - such as fertiliser, undigested feed and biological waste from the fish - is frequently released, polluting waterways. Farmed fish that escape into the wild can threaten native species by acting as predators, competing for food and habitat, or inter-breeding and changing the genetic pool of wild organisms.

Rapidly increasing demand in Asia for animal feed with high fish-protein content is also contributing to pressure on the wild stocks from which these products are derived. Meanwhile, imposing quotas so that over-fished areas can recover is unpopular and difficult to enforce.

Can Asia meet future demand for fish? The Asian Development Bank says only if strong action is taken to improve wild fisheries management, develop aquaculture in a responsible way and better protect the environment. Otherwise, it warns, the region could face a serious shortage of fish.

* Michael Richardson, a former Asia Editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.